Sydney: The Winter
by CRebel
Summary: A four-part story of how Sydney's secret came to light. Takes place between the third and fourth seasons.
1. Beth

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of The Walking Dead.**

**. . . . .  
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There's a poem by Edgar Allan Poe that's called "Alone."

I can't understand some of it, and of the parts I can understand, I can't relate to too much. But there's one section that's different. This section echoes back and forth in my head sometimes. Sometimes like now, this evening, as I stand on the catwalk with the slate of a sky spitting snow down, as I tell myself to go inside and get warm, but no, my legs won't move. This section of the poem, it goes like this:

_**From the same source I have not taken  
My sorrow — I could not awaken  
My heart to joy at the same tone —  
And all I lov'd — I lov'd alone.**_

What Poe – when people talk about writers, they always use their last names – what Poe means, as far as I can tell, is that he isn't sad from the things that make other people sad. Like if a little girl begs you not to throw a knife at a rabbit because it would make her sad, but you do it anyway, because it wouldn't make you sad because you know the rabbit would be good food and all you know you should do is survive. Likewise, Poe isn't happy from the things that make other people happy. Like, see, Carol and Beth and some other people are right cooking probably the biggest meal we've had in months, attempting to celebrate what would have been Thanksgiving and maybe Christmas, too – that makes most of the people here happy. But not me. Nothing's changed inside of me; I'm as numb as I've been for weeks. Months. Things have happened, after all. So food and I don't get along too well. And, to top it off, my dad's gone off with Michonne to find – and my mother's –

I squeeze my hands around the chain-link of the catwalk.

_And all I loved, I loved alone._ That's pretty self-explanatory, I think. And at first, I couldn't really match those words up to who I am, but as the air got harsher and the ground turned to ice and the night darkened and darkened, that line kept coming back to me, wrapping around and around in my head, so finally I listened to it, again and again, until I figured out why it mattered.

I don't connect to the line because no one else loves the things I love – which is what I think is what the line actually means. There's so little left in the world, it's almost impossible to find something worth loving that no one else will snag onto as well. No, the reason my mind likes the line so much is because of the feeling. The sad, sad feeling of it. _All I loved, I loved alone_. I feel enough of love, or remember enough of it at least, that I know it's a good thing. A great thing, even. Beautiful and safe and, best of all, warm. But then you make it a lonely love, something so warm closed up by stone walls. Left out in the cold.

There's something in that idea that I can relate to very well. So today, even as the scent of cooking meat breaks out of the prison and swirls around me, I let my fingers and my face go numb and let that piece of poem circle around in my head. All I loved, I loved alone.

But time comes and goes and out of the quiet comes noise. And soon two boys are below the catwalk, peering up at me.

"Hey, Syd?"

His voice is so hesitant these days.

"Why don't you come play soccer with us?"

"No, thanks."

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

I'm staring straight ahead, but I can see the movement below. Carl separates from the new kid, and the new kid heads out to the field; Carl comes up the stairs to the catwalk. I drop my head as he gets up here.

"Carl . . ."

"Have you eaten today?"

No, Carl, I haven't eaten in two days. I clear my throat and jerk my head. "Go play soccer."

He's right by me. "I'm worried about you."

"Well, don't be."

"But –"

"Damn it, Carl, go play soccer." I finally look at him, and I make my eyes hard. His aren't hard at all. But through the hurt and confusion I see him make a decision and he backs away. Then he's gone, and I'm alone. All is right.

. . . . .

I can't stay out here and watch them kick the damn ball around. It's pointless and out of place against all the walkers pressing against the fence, wanting to tear them up. So I give in and go inside. The warm air stings my skin, drives down into my bones. It hurts but pain doesn't bother me anymore. Pain and I actually have the best relationship in my life right now.

Down some stairs, into Cell Block C. I have to think of it as _C _now, because there's also a _D _in use. Because of all the people that are suddenly _our _people. Strangers we found and strangers who once cheered, howled, for my dad to fight –

To my cell. Too much noise out here. Talking from the dining room, dishes clanging. Need to get to my cell.

"Sydney!"

Beth's in the door to the dining room. Her ponytail's coming undone, she has the baby in her arms, and she's walking fast towards me. "Will you please get Judith to sleep? I have to finish the soup and –"

"No – Beth –"

"Please? You're so good with her –" And now the baby's in my arms. I shift her around as gently as I can. "Just sing to her, you're a good singer."

"Beth!" I call as she hurries away. "Beth, I can't –"

Judith coughs and there's something warm and wet on my shoulder.

"Damn it!" I hiss. Judith then begins to cry, and Beth's here again, rescuing her from me.

"I'm sorry, she usually doesn't –"

"I told you I didn't want to take her!" And I spin on my heel and stalk into my cell. I yank the curtain closed behind me and say things no twelve-year-old should say, but I don't really care what twelve-year-olds should and shouldn't do these days, why the hell should I? It doesn't matter one damn bit.

I rip off my jacket. It's Beth's old denim one, which I might have once found funny. A little vomit got onto my overshirt, too, and I tear it off, leaving me just in my tank top. It seems fine.

But oh, my arms –

I'm still not used to looking at my arms, not as they are now. So I don't. I kick my jacket and my overshirt into the corner and pull my backpack from the top bunk. I've just started digging into it when light pours into my dark little corner of the world.

"Hey," says Beth as my spine goes rigid, "If you give me your jacket, I'll –"

"Christ sake!" I yank out the first piece of clothing I can get my hands on and tangle my arms around it. "You can't just walk in here like that!"

Beth's frozen.

Oh, God, no.

The thing I have wrapped around my arms is a pair of jeans. The strangest thing I could have grabbed. But I can't drop it, if I drop it, she'll see –

But she's already seen.

She edges forward. "Sydney –" she begins, soft, sweet, but no, no way.

"Would you just go?"

She meets my eyes. Hers are horrified.

"Would you just go_ – just go!"_

She does, then. She turns around, fast enough that her ponytail whips to the other side of her head, and in the doorway she glances back so quickly the same thing happens again. And her eyes are still the same way.

My teeth clamp together, my jaw's become iron. I drop the jeans and fall on the bed, put my head in my hands, but then shoot up straight and wrap myself tight in my blankets, every inch of me, especially the bad parts. This is bad. Beth could have come in here and seen me naked and I wouldn't feel half as exposed I just did, half as violated –

She's seen it. My secret. The story of who I've become, etched right into my skin. Something cracks inside of me and I crumble, gasping, panicked.

But I don't hit rock bottom until a voice inside me whispers that there's no way she'll keep quiet about this.


	2. Carol

Distantly, I consider doing it in here. I took my dad's lighter before he left. It's under my mattress. But I don't feel like leaving – I don't feel like I can – and I don't do _that _here. I only do it in cold places where everything on the outside of me matches up with what's inside. And anyway, I don't have the right feelings, the right thoughts. This isn't a lighter-and-a-knife kind of thing. There's no guilt attached to Beth seeing my arm, because she doesn't get it, she doesn't get that I had to do it because I deserved it. No one else will get it, either. Least of all my dad –

I curl up in bed with the covers pulled over me. I feel sick. Dad. He was never supposed to know. He was never –

He's never here these days. When he is, I barely talk to him. How can I? How can I, when the one thing I want most in the world is to go after the Governor, but Dad won't allow me to? How can I when it would be better for Dad all around if he would just forget I exist? He doesn't see things that way, though, so now when he gets back – if he gets back at all – I'll not only be ignoring him, he'll be freaking out.

God, there's nothing I can do to keep him from knowing about it, is there? I could beg Beth. But no, I couldn't even talk to her right now. And it's been at least an hour, it's probably too late. If she's told at least one other person, it's too late. That's the conclusion I've reached when someone calls my name from outside my cell. I know the voice well and my heart sinks. I break my head out from under the covers just enough to answer. "Yeah?"

Carol opens the curtain and leaves it open. It's night now, so even outside of my cell it's dark, but there are enough lamps and candles out there that there's at least a dim orange glow to cast a shadow over Carol as she comes to my bed and leans against it, her hands gripping the rails of the top bunk. I wrestle away from the blankets. It's hard – I feel like the _me_ part of me is crooked inside of my body and I can't operate everything correctly. I'm sweating, but I'm not so out of it that I forget to keep my forearms buried under the covers.

"Dinner's ready," says Carol.

She wouldn't come into my cell just to tell me dinner's ready.

"I don't feel good."

She looks at me for a second. It's that look that does it – it blows away any bit of hope that maybe she doesn't know, that maybe this is just a visit between old friends. Her lowering onto the bed is just icing.

"Honey. Show me your arms."

"Why?"

"Just show me them."

"No."

Carol's eyebrows almost touch. Me going against her, that's not normal. It was long ago decided, wordlessly, that my dad's absence is not the same thing as the absence of an authority figure for me. Carol, Rick, Hershel, I'm supposed to mind all of them. But I'm not about to mind now. Not on this.

Carol reaches for the blanket. "Sydney, show me –"

Like hell I'll show her.

"No!" I kick myself back, pressing into the corner of the room, turned so my crossed arms are protected by my torso. "I said _no!_ You're not my mother, you can't tell me what to do, just stay away from me! Stay away from me!"

I've braced myself, but I am not touched and there are no sounds beyond my panting and the far-away voices in the dining room. I risk looking over my shoulder, and Carol's still there. Her eyes are sad but her lips are in a line. "Okay," she eventually says. "I'll stay away from you."

Good. That's good. That's what I wanted, yeah?

She stands. She pauses. "But Sydney, when he gets back, I'm going to have to tell your daddy what Beth told me."

I say nothing. She goes and I collapse back onto and into my bed.

A few minutes later, someone else calls my name. I don't answer, but she comes in anyway.

"Sydney?" she repeats in that voice made for singing.

"I don't want to talk to you."

But my mattress dips down. "I'm only here as your friend," Beth says. "Please. We don't have to talk."

Good, because I'm not about to, not after she told.

But she takes my hand – she pulls the cover with it and then tucks it under my arm – and I don't take it back. Just because I don't have the energy, though. Not because it's comforting or anything. And I don't get any energy for a long time. I fall asleep with my hand in Beth's, and if I ever tighten my grip, it's only because I'm imagining my father getting the news.


	3. Daryl

For two days, I lie in my room, just like I did after we brought in the people from Woodbury. After we brought in the bitch. I mostly sleep. Carl, Carol, Beth, Maggie, they all bring food at one time or another. Carl brings food three times. But in these two days, I consume only two bowls of soup and one hunk of rabbit. And I throw up the rabbit. Hershel checks on me after that, feeling my forehead, looking down my throat. Does he know? Probably. But he says I seem to be the perfect image of physical health and then touches down on _feelings_, so I roll over and close my eyes. That gets him to leave.

The evening of the second day, my dad gets back.

There's no great announcement. No bells ringing or people shouting. I just hear his voice, and for a moment I think I'm dreaming, but I find myself lifting my head anyway, and I cross over into what I'm pretty sure is reality and I hear him clear his throat. So my body gets out of the blankets and gets me out of the room. My forehead's damp and feels like it freezes as I flinch against the light out here.

Dad comes in from the dining room just as I come out from the cell. His hair seems longer, almost shaggy. How long has it been since he left? Three weeks, a month, more? His crossbow's on his back, so's his vest. He's not missing any limbs and he's not significantly bloodstained anywhere. He's fine. Of course he is. But he has this way of, I don't know, loosening his whole body when he sees me after he's been gone. Not much, but enough that I can tell. He does that now, sighing, and he comes to me and I take a few small steps to meet him and he hugs me tight and for a moment, just the smallest moment, nothing's wrong –

But then he lets go and everything's still wrong, of course, unless –

"You find him?"

"No." And that's all he gives me. He pins my greasy hair back from my face and says, "You sick?"

"No," I answer in the least-sick voice I can manage.

"Then why d'ya look like you are? You been eatin'?"

Good. Let's start right back up from where we left off. Makes it easier for me to shut him out anyway, and I know I need to do that. So I take a step back, shrugging his hands off. "Michonne okay?"

"She's fine. Sydney? You been eatin'?"

"When are you goin' out again?"

"You ain't been, have you?"

Screw it. I suddenly remember why I've been in bed for so long. Things outside of my cell make me tired. That's why I turn to go back to that bed. "I'm in the middle of something."

"Hey!" he snaps, and not long ago, that voice would have made me stop cold. Now I just keep going, into my cave, into my burrow. I sleep.

. . . . .

It's Dad saying my name that wakes me up. This time there's no questioning whether it's a dream or not. His tone jolts me right awake. It's not his scary voice, at least not the kind he uses when I'm in trouble, this is something different. So I roll onto my back to look at him, expecting him to be sitting on the bed, but he's not. He's in the doorway. It's dark outside and that disorients me for a second.

"What?" I say, looking him up and down, expecting a plate of food I'll have to force my stomach to take. But I don't see it.

Then my dad says, "Let's go for a walk," and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

I get out of bed, every one of my joints much too stiff. My heart's pounding, too. I'm dressed in the same shirt and overshirt and jeans I've had on since all of this finding-out shit started. Dad has my black jacket, the one that looks too much like the one the bitch has. But I take it and slide my arms into it.

We go through the dining room. People are there, just a few. I don't check who. I keep my dad between me and them and I keep my head low and then we get out into the night where the air is cold enough to slice you up and I feel, just a little, just a little better. Oh, but that's silly.

Dad is quiet.

I follow him out of the cold air into a place a little warmer, too warm, I liked the cold better. I've been so focused on the air and Dad and everything this means and everything that's about to happen that I don't realize where we are until Dad stops and the room juts into my head.

The boiler room. We're in the middle of the boiler room, where Dad had his last conversation with Merle, where Merle found the wire he would use to kidnap Michonne. But he only kidnapped her for so long, didn't he? Oh, and that's not the end of the boiler room's story. Me and the boiler room, we have a great little relationship of our own. Kind of like my relationship with pain. Very much like it, actually.

But Dad being here turns both of those relationships into things that are twisted and mutated and meant to be hidden away and cried about, lied about. I don't want him here. It's wrong.

He's led me to the middle of the room. Now he steps away. My feet are nailed down. I don't look straight at him. He gets four or five or six steps off and stops. Nothing happens for a while. I still can't move, can't even breath. Then Dad looks at me, the corner of my eye catches his head move.

"Show me your arms."

He might as well have reached into my chest. He might as well have reached into my chest with icy hands and clenched everything in there as tight as he could, lungs, heart, all of it. I can't speak. Speaking is not an option.

"Sydney."

He's not talking mean. He's using his . . . his special gentle voice, actually. Somehow that makes it all the more worse. It's so dark in here. This room. Goddamn this room.

I shake my head. Slowly at first, and I mean for it just to be once or twice, but I keep doing it, my head just keeps on swinging.

"Show me."

My head just keeps on swinging.

My dad sighs, kind of like he did when he got back but deeper, and now he's coming towards me. My head picks up speed, I don't look at him, my head picks up more speed and Dad has a handful of my jacket –

_"No!"_

"Shh . . ."

– and he's turned me around. His other hand is on my other shoulder and he's tugging the jacket off of me. I try to break away from him, and I tighten my arms around me, but he's stronger than I am.

"_No!"_

"Shh," he says again. He's still using the special gentle voice, and I can tell that even his hands are being as gentle as they can be as they pull my arms down, roll the jacket the rest of the way off me. But I'm crying anyway. Hard. My overshirt's tighter, it's going to give him the most trouble, I'm going to give him trouble, too, the jacket breaks away from me and I try to run, but Dad catches me, he keeps one hand on my stomach, then he has to capture my wrists and hold them in that one hand while he peels the overshirt down from my shoulders, down my back –

"Stop . . . _stop! I hate you!"_

– and once it's down my back he lets me go, and I try to bolt again, but that's exactly what he wanted, it jerks the shirt all the way off my wrists, and it's just me in my tank top with my bare arms, and I cross them over my chest, hands gripping shoulders, and I back away, he's not going to see, I won't let him, but I can barely stand up straight because of the sobs, and now Dad's on my level, he's on his knees, and I go crazy when I feel his fingers on my wrists, I jerk around and scream but I can't stop him, and then I'm on my knees too and I'm exhausted and my arms are right there, right there for the world to see, and even worse, my dad.

The left arm's torn up the most, since I'm right handed. Hardly an inch left untouched up to the inside of my elbow. The ones closer to the hand have healed and just left scars; some of the ones further up are still scabbed over and even uglier than the healed ones. My right arm, though, that's the one I burn most often. I started that after the cutting. Now there are a bunch of reddish-brown splotches that hurt even worse than the cuts do, in the shower, in the rain. Pretty much always, actually, when there's water and when there's not. That's why I keep doing it, I guess. Pain, pain, pain. But that pain's nothing compared to the pain of this moment. I can look at my arms for just a blink of an eye before I double over. Or, I would double over, if Dad wasn't still holding my wrists firmly in his hands. He's holding them too long.

When he finally does let go, I fall back and kick at him. I don't hit anything, but my arms find my shirt and I fumble with it and cover, I think I cover the scars, and then Dad's wrapped his arms around me.

"_I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!"_

I flail. I claw at his face and quickly get my arms pinned to my sides. My whole body's pinned up. I sit on the floor, him keeping me still, but I try to get away, to get at him, to leave or fight or die or something until I can't anymore, that exhaustion, it's back, it's stronger than me, and my throat hurts so bad, I can't stop crying, I can't stop crying, so I stop moving and just go limp. Maybe I can convince my brain to black out. I'll wake up alone and I'll run. I'll leave. Dad, Carl, everyone'll be better off. They can forget. I can forget or just disappear, a girl with shredded arms vanished into the dying world.

But I don't black out and the sobs like being in my body. Dad's arms gradually get looser but stay around me. His head leans against the back of mine and his fingers comb through my hair. He says _shh _again and again. That's all.

A long, long time later, I do actually stop crying. Then I just sit there, because it feels like I _should_ still be crying. I want to still be crying, it's what's right. But I don't think my body has it in it anymore. I don't think I've ever cried like this, not even after my mother, not even after Dale, not even after Merle. My body probably doesn't understand what's going on. It only understands enough to find that abused shirt that's ended up by Dad's knee, to spread it over my arms so I don't have to look at them anymore. So he won't.

Dad doesn't start talking right after I get quiet. No, in fact, it's another long, long time later when he speaks. The silence until then is actually nice. His arms holding me up, me not having to move or care or try, it's nice. Like I'm part of a statue. But then, like I said, he talks and makes me quit pretending.

"I ain't goin' after the Governor no more."

My head falls against his chest, and my swollen throat croaks out, "You have to." It's what matters most. Someone needs to find him. Someone needs to kill him. "You have to."

I feel him brace his arms. Preparing. "Baby, the trail's gone cold. No use tryin' to track him now. Ain't nothin' to track."

"Pick the trail back up! I've seen you do it! I've seen you –"

"Shh –"

"_You have to find him! You have to find him, you have to –"_

He locks me against him again and I gasp a lot, make these strange squeaks. Dry sobs. "You have to, you have to . . ."

"Shh. Sydney. Shh."

"I hate you . . ."

"I hear you. Shh, I hear you."

He can't mean it. He can't mean he won't go after the Governor. He has to, he has to – Merle –

"Oh, God . . ." I whimper. Dad tightens his hold even more. I fight for air and lose and then win and lose some more. I make noises and then don't. Dad rocks and rubs my back and then he's talking again.

"We need to get some sleep. We can talk in the mornin'."

No, I don't want to.

"We need to get some sleep."

I can't move. I have absolutely no desire to try. I would be content being left here, but Dad picks me up like I'm weightless. The last person to carry me like this was my uncle.

I hide my head in Dad's chest. "Don't let them see."

"I won't, babe."

We go outside. I don't look at anything. Dad carries me up some stairs. A blurry image of the catwalk appears in my head. We walk and get indoors. We go down some more stairs, go through a door. I hear voices but they're not close. They're in the dining room, where people who like people and like themselves go to live.

But no, no, then I hear –

"What's wrong? Is she okay?" Carl sounds panicked and I take hold of Dad's shirt and don't look, don't dare look.

"She'll be fine. She just needs some sleep."

"I tried – I told her to eat –"

"I know, man. Don't worry, I got her."

The sound of a curtain sliding on a rod, then darkness even darker than what's outside. Better than the boiler room darkness, much better. My bed. So familiar and safe. I curl up and struggle with my blankets until they're good and tangled. Dad helps. I don't expect him to leave and he doesn't. After a while, he strokes my hair. I let him.

"I don't hate you," I say.

"I know."

"You should hate me."

"I love you more'n anything. Go to sleep."

"But I killed him . . ."

His hand goes still. It just stays there on the back of my head, heavy as a rock. "Killed who?"

"Merle. I killed Merle."

He takes me under the arms and moves me and my blankets over so there's room on the bed for him to lie down. "No, you didn't," he whispers as he tucks my head into him.

"I said –"

"I don't care what you said, the Governor killed him. It was that son of a bitch, not you. Not at all."

He's wrong, but . . . "You have to go after him –"

"Darlin', we'll talk in the mornin'. Go to sleep."

"You have to . . ." I dry-sob, and then I'm done, done with the whole damn day. Sleep rams into me and I let it drag me down into the black.

. . . . .

I wake up with my head still on Dad's chest. He has no covers and is probably cold. He's also already awake, and as I look into the eyes he gave me and am crushed by the memories of everything from last night, he asks, "Wanna go huntin'?"

Hunting. With my bed here, in my nice, isolated cell? "No."

His lips press together. He searches my face, then says, "Too bad," and gets up.

I stare at him. He reaches the doorway, looks back, and says, "Meet me out front in five minutes." Then he's gone. As the curtain opens and closes, I see that it isn't even dawn yet.

. . . . .

Hunting isn't the kind of thing you forget how to do. At least, not if it's instinct. Or close enough. Meaning, not if it's something you've been watching people do since you were born and doing yourself since not long after that. Not if it's the only thing in your life that you're not only good at, but that's also useful, that you also enjoy.

I forgot about all that.

I remember, kind of – like I'm looking at wrinkled pictures of what used to be – when around mid-morning my father jerks his head at a squirrel in a tree and raises his eyebrows. He already has two squirrels on his belt. This one is mine, overdue. So I raise my bow and aim, and it feels strange, unbelievably strange, to do this after so long. But when I pull the trigger, I hit my target.

My dad readjusts his crossbow. "Look who's still got it."

I just stare at the dead squirrel and try to figure out how I did that.

. . . . .

An hour later, Dad and I are on a slab of rock maybe half a mile downriver from the prison. He's broken out lunch, a can of peas for each of us and some strips of dried meat. He rips into the latter and gestures for me to dig in. I look at the offering and turn my head. He chews, swallows, eyes me, and says, "When's the last time you ate?"

"Yesterday."

"Liar."

The water below me is busy. It hurries along its long-known path, rubbing over all manner of stones, turning their rough surface smooth. They'll still hurt if they hit you, though. "'Bout three days ago."

A cracking noise, and then Dad's handing me an open can of peas. "Eat."

"Dad, I don't wanna throw up."

"I've had you out in these woods all day, runnin' around, buildin' up an appetite. If you weren't starvin' before, you are now. Your body knows it, too. Eat."

Fine. I tilt the can back and gulp in a mouthful of peas. I swallow immediately and slam the can back on the stone, letting some of the stuff slosh over my hand. I press my palm to my mouth as my gag reflex gives its best shot, and my dad pats my back, and I gulp and keep the peas down. "I'm done."

"Fine. But you gotta get a meal down ya 'fore bed tonight." He eats another piece of meat but puts the unopened can of peas back into his vest pocket. He wraps the remaining meat back up in plastic and stuffs it into a different pocket, and the opened can of peas he throws into the river. It hits a rock and bounces off, spilling green into the water. I watch that green fade away, carried downstream in a million different little bits. I wait for Dad to get up, but he doesn't.

"I meant what I said last night," he says soon in a voice that puts me on edge. "I'm not goin' out after him no more."

Look at the pretty water. Look at all the rocks it's trying to make smooth. I wonder if any rocks ever fight back. "So you're just gonna let him get away with everything?"

"Sydney, he's gone."

"He's still out there."

"Might be dead."

"Might be alive."

"It don't matter."

"Of course it does!"

"Keep your voice down." He glances over his shoulder, returns his attention to me all too soon. I find myself tugging my long sleeves down further.

"Even if he's alive," Dad says, giving me the kind of drive-into-you-look that pushes my eyes to the river again, "He ain't here. My daughter is."

Water in the ground, water in my eyes. "So you're gonna let him run free 'cause of me."

"I'm gonna let him run free 'cause I can't find him and I ain't gonna waste my time on a wild goose chase when I got more important things here."

Things like me. So much for my plan to shut him out. But damn it, does he think this makes me feel better? Does he think leaving the Governor be is helpful? "You never woulda done this if you hadn't found out –" My throat closes.

We're interrupted by a snarl. Dad and I both look to our left to see a used-to-be-man shuffling its way towards us. Dad takes his crossbow and heads to meet it. I watch him put an arrow through its head, get the arrow back, and return to me. He cleans the arrow with the rag from his back pocket. It's right after he loads his crossbow again that he says, "Why?"

"Why what?"

He sits again. He spits into the water. Then he meets my gaze before dropping his to my arm. "Why'd ya do all that?"

I find myself cracking my knuckles, and I feel a sensation almost identical to the one I got when I shot the squirrel at my waist. An unfamiliar sort of familiarity. "I deserved it," I murmur before I can stop myself.

"What?"

"I hate myself." It's all spilling out now, isn't it? But why not? He knows the big secret. Let him know all of them.

"Sydney –"

"I'm not a good person. I told my uncle he should be dead and then he died. I'm horrible to you. My own mom didn't want me. I deserved it –"

My voice has gone high-pitched and tears are inevitable, so when Dad takes the back of my neck I think he's going to hug me, but instead he pulls my head to meet his, almost roughly. Our foreheads touch, our eyes are close and there's nowhere to look but straight at him, and as my vision blurs he says, "That's a load of crap."

"No, it's –"

"Quit arguin' with me."

I drop my head, let the tears go, and now Dad does hug me. He doesn't wait for me to stop crying to talk. Guess he knows how long I can cry for now.

"I ain't been around enough for you lately. And I'm sorry 'bout that. But I ain't goin' nowhere no more. And you and me, we're gonna get a handle on this, alright? You ain't gonna do that to yourself again."

"I, I have to –"

"What, to punish yourself? 'Cause you think you _deserve_ it? Well, guess what? I'm your damn _dad_ and I'm the only one who decides if you gotta be punished or not. And baby girl, you ain't done nothin' to earn somethin' like that. You never could."

"But . . ."

"Shh." He pushes hair behind my ear. After a while he whispers, "You're scarin' off all the game."

And somewhere in between all my sobs comes the strangest laugh.

But that doesn't mean I agree with him. I'm not sure I can.


	4. Carl

Dad and I come back into the prison through the tombs, nice and quietly, and my plan is to slip into my cell and think things through for a couple of days, but that goes down the drain pretty fast. Sitting outside of my cell is Carl, back against the wall, legs stretched out. When he sees Dad and me, he gets up slowly, sighing like it hurts, and looks me straight in the eye. "We need to talk."

It's his no-nonsense tone. The kind he uses when, as far as he's concerned, there's no option other than the one he's giving you. I shoot a begging kind of look to my dad, but he only nods and says, "You heard the man." Then he's going upstairs, leaving me alone with Carl for the first time in a long time.

I want to run. Dart into my cell and pull the curtain, block out Carl and the world with him. But I don't think I'm supposed to do things like that anymore. So all I do is say, "Not here."

We wind up on the catwalk, in spite of the cold, in spite of the tearstains and the bad memories. Clouds are beginning to roll in and cover the late afternoon sun. Maybe it'll snow some more. Maybe I could try and enjoy it this time. After all, snow is one of the things that made Carl _my _Carl.

But is he even mine anymore?

We both stare out at the courtyard, at the field. At the things that lie beyond the field.

"My dad kept saying you would get better," Carl says after a minute of silence. "He said you just needed time. Like he did with . . . with my mom."

You can hear it, if you listen close. The raw pain in his tone. It still hurts him, what happened with Lori, I know it does, and I figure it always will. But what he doesn't understand is that it's different with me, with me and my uncle, because it was my –

But Dad says it's not.

Can I really believe him, though?

Carl's not done.

"But you've just gotten worse. And I don't want to give you more time, because . . . because I don't know what'll happen to you if you keep getting worse. But probably something bad. Maybe . . ."

The temperature's dropping, because of the clouds. Yes, because of the clouds.

Carl turns to me. "I know something's been going on these past few days. You need to tell me what."

"I don't _need _to do anything."

"Yeah, you do! That's what you and me do, Sydney, we . . . We tell each other these things!"

I back up, walk a few steps away from him, spin back and say, "So, what? What, you want me to – you want me to spill my guts out 'cause, 'cause it's what I'm s'posed to do? 'Cause it'll make you feel like everything's right in your world?"

"No, I want you to spill your guts out because you're my friend."

The thing about snow is that it comes with an almost unnatural-feeling silence, the stillest, hardest kind of silence I've ever experienced. Silence before, silence during, silence after. As Carl's mouth closes, I realize that we've put ourselves in the first moments of this silence, and I feel like we're in a picture, frozen, and that scares me, because I don't want to be frozen like _this_. I don't want to be trapped as this person with these arms and this relationship with this boy who gives a damn.

"You won't like what I have to tell you," I whisper.

He moves to me and his words float off in puffs of mist as he says, "Tell me anyway?"

He's stopped trying to give the orders. He knows I handle requests better. He knows. Maybe that's why I begin to unzip my jacket.

"Don't freak out, okay?"

He's confused for a while, watching me take off my top two layers. And the confusion doesn't go away as I pull my arms out of my overshirt sleeves, it's just joined and maybe overpowered by shock and – and some horror. Only I can't stop now. I hold my arms out, palms upturned, so he can take it all in. Let him take it all in. It's what he thought he wanted. But I make myself watch his face, too, I can't turn away, I can't leave him alone in this.

He reaches out, almost touches an arm, but then changes his mind. "You . . ."

"Yeah."

He looks for a long time, eyes going from one arm to another, and then his gaze hits mine hard. _"How could you do this to yourself?"_

And I think I must have heard wrong. "'S'cuse me?"

"We spend most of our time trying to keep stuff from hurting us, and then you just – you just do this to yourself? Like it doesn't even matter?"

I drop my arms. "There's a hell of a difference between this shit and walkers."

"Yeah! You didn't cause the walkers!"

"I told you not to freak out!"

"I didn't know you –" I think he's used all his words then. He heaves out those mist breaths and can't seem to decide where to look now, it's all awful, isn't it, my wrists, my arms, my face. And now, now I feel exactly how I felt when Beth found out, vulnerable and bare, only, because it's him, it's worse. I want to get my clothes, cover up and shrink, but my body won't do it, it doesn't even feel cold, it's not feeling much of anything.

"It got bad," I hear myself try and explain. I'm rasping, the way my dad does, only it doesn't sound strong and right when it comes from me. If anything, it makes me sound smaller. "I was hearing things. Feeling things . . . Carl, my – my uncle, my mom, all of that shit – the goddamn _Governor_, I just – I just wanted it to stop . . ."

"You could have talked to me!"

"Quit yellin' at me! I'm – I'm talkin' to ya now, man . . ."

He's looking out at the field. I swallow, why won't he look at me? "I don't think I want to keep doin' it," I say before my head has time to think about if that's true or not. But those words catch his eyes again, they catch them and keep them, and eventually he talks.

"Does your dad know?"

I nod. "He found out last night."

"Are you in trouble?"

"I don't know. I don't think so, I think . . . I just, he told me I'm not gonna do it anymore, so . . . I don't really know what that means."

"It means don't do it anymore."

"You think it's that easy?"

"Since when do you need anything to be easy?"

Since everything started being so damn hard, that's when.

Carl's bending down, picking up my shirt. I let him help me into it, then into my jacket. My fingers fumble getting the zipper up and then my head's found its way to Carl's chest. I see a snowflake on his shoulder and I pick it off, let it melt between my fingers. "How 'bout we go out into the woods and get lost? Find a thicket? Eat dove and hide from walkers?"

"I'd rather take Silver and make our way to Florida to see if Disney World's been overrun."

"Will there be dog food?"

He's leading me to the door. "Yeah. And Snickers bars."

And I'll love nothing alone.

We can't just disappear like that, though. We have too many people here who think they need me and really do need him. And Carl, he's one of the people who thinks he needs me and I sure as hell really need him, so I pull his arm tighter around me and let him get me inside, to the warmth. Should probably get as much of that as we can. I have a feeling it'll be a long winter.

**The End**


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